Mortgage and ancillary services

Inman News has compiled a list of the 100 most influential people in real estate, reflecting the industry’s best and brightest, as well as outside figures whose actions influence the home buying and selling business. The following 10 people were chosen in the mortgage and ancillary services category.

For the complete list of the 100 Most Influential Real Estate People, join Inman News.

Parker Kennedy
President, First American Corp.

Parker Kennedy in 2003 was one of 10 executives on a Forbes magazine list of the most efficient, “bang for your buck” CEOs. Kennedy is a fourth-generation executive at the company his great-grandfather C.E. Parker founded 114 years ago. First American has grown from a small title-search business in Orange County, Calif., to a major national title insurer today that also offers a complete menu of real estate-related products and services through various business channels.

For a full profile of Kennedy, click here.

Michael Perry
Chairman and CEO, IndyMac Bancorp.

Michael Perry radically changed the corporate structure of IndyMac from a mortgage real estate investment trust to a federally regulated depository institution. He also has led the mortgage industry in technology and Web innovations and the company is likely to continue down that path.

Pat Stone
Vice Chairman, Metrocities Mortgage

Metrocities Mortgage, a national home loan lender based in Southern California, has an unusual model, using affiliated business arrangements, or ABAs, as its main business driver. Stone, a board member of the 1,250-employee firm that closed over $6.3 billion in loans in 2004, has taken a leadership role with this innovative company. Metrocities is also progressive in the technology arena, with automated underwriting to expedite the loan process and a proprietary search engine that assists in finding the best loan programs and pricing to meet the unique needs of each individual client.

Steve Ozonian
Homeownership executive, Bank of America

Few in the industry have had as many leadership roles in different aspects of real estate as Ozonian. As former chief of Realtor.com, executive at RE/MAX International and now homeownership executive for Bank of America, Ozonian has influenced three major pieces of the real estate industry. We expect him to continue innovating as he heads Bank of America’s homeownership initiatives.

Richard F. Syron
Chairman and CEO, Freddie Mac

Richard F. Syron is chairman and chief executive officer of Freddie Mac, a New York Stock Exchange traded company and the second largest source of mortgage financing in the United States. Syron joined Freddie Mac in December 2003, and leads Freddie Mac and its 4,400 employees in a time of challenge for the mortgage giant, which has been under fire since last year when accounting irregularities were discovered at Freddie Mac and its larger sibling, Fannie Mae. The accounting issues led to the departure of Franklin Raines, Fannie’s CEO, and calls for stricter regulation for the government-sponsored enterprises now being considered in Congress.

Daniel H. Mudd

On June 1, Mudd was named as president and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, a move hailed by industry figures as a source of direction and certainty for the embattled mortgage giant. Mudd had been serving as Fannie Mae’s interim CEO since the board named him to the position on Dec. 21, 2004. Fannie Mae in December 2004 replaced Franklin Raines, its chairman and CEO. Raines left in the wake of an SEC directive to make accounting corrections that could knock out some $9 billion of Fannie Mae’s past profit.

Angelo Mozilo
Chairman, CEO, Countrywide Financial Corp.

As a co-founder of Countrywide Financial Corp., Angelo Mozilo has helped take the company from its humble beginnings in 1969 to a global leader in residential finance and related services today. Under Mozilo’s leadership, the company has built its market share largely by aggressively pursuing partnerships with real estate brokerages and homebuilders. With the industry increasingly focusing on such partnerships, Mozilo is leading the pack.

Sig Anderman
Founder and CEO, Ellie Mae

With more than 30 years in the mortgage industry, Anderman is an expert on a variety of issues affecting brokers, lenders and service providers, ranging from mortgage automation to eMortgages. Under Anderman’s direction, Ellie Mae developed and now hosts ePASS, a major “Internet switch” used in the mortgage industry. More than 21,000 mortgage brokerages use ePASS to connect to and exchange data with 45 wholesale lenders and more than 90,000 settlement service providers.

For a full profile of Anderman, click here.

Stewart Morris, Jr.
President, Stewart Title and Stewart Information Services, Houston

Morris has led the charge toward the paperless real estate transaction with his company’s innovations, including eClosingRoom, Stewart’s electronic closing platform integrated into the company’s SureClose online transaction management system. He sees his company’s mission as enhancing the real estate transaction process and says his biggest challenge is “to get those enhancements developed, integrated with reality and deployed.” Morris’ family has operated Stewart since 1893, but this long history hasn’t stopped him from pursuing innovations. This May, Stewart bought the paperless real estate transaction one giant step closer to adoption when two of its clients closed the sale of their home using eClosingRoom.

William Foley
Chairman, Fidelity National Financial

Foley ischairman of the board and CEO of Fidelity National Financial Inc., and one of his proudest accomplishments was the company’s March 2000 acquisition of Chicago Title Insurance Co., which catapulted Fidelity into the position of largest U.S. title insurance company. The company now claims total revenue of more than $7.7 billion. Under Foley’s direction, Fidelity diversified through the 2003 acquisition of ALLTEL Information Services, a large bank processing, outsourcing and mortgage servicing firm with almost $900 million in revenues. Foley is also a vintner. He is the founder and managing partner of Foley Estates Vineyard and Winery as well as LinCourt Vineyards in California.

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